Crocus appoints CEO for Russian MRAM fab

LONDON – Crocus Technology Inc., a developer of MRAM memory ICs, has announced the appointment of Boris Omarov as CEO of a manufacturing joint venture, Crocus Nano Electronics (CNE), which is being created to run an MRAM wafer fab under development in Russia.

In May Crocus (Sunnyvale, Calif.) announced that it would receive an investment of about $300 million, led by Rusnano, the Russian state-owned nanotechnology fund, with most of the money earmarked for the creation of a manufacturing joint venture in Russia.

With more than 25 years of experience in the semiconductor industry, Omarov most recently served as senior director of sales and marketing in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) for Osram Semiconductor. Omarov holds a master's degree in business administration from California State University, Hayward, and a PhD from Moscow State Institute of Electronics Equipment Manufacturing.

"The appointment of Boris is a key step, and underscores our commitment to building a world-class MRAM manufacturing facility," said Bertrand Cambou, executive chairman of Crocus, in a statement. "We are fortunate to have someone of Boris' caliber and experience, and we are confident his leadership will help ensure the future success of CNE."

"Boris brings the right mix of technology experience and familiarity with Russian business infrastructure to make this an optimal fit for CNE," said Dmitriy Lisenkov, managing director of RUSNANO.

No location has been announced for the production facility but it is set to be the world's first dedicated magnetic memory wafer fab according to Crocus. It is being designed to fashion devices with 90- and 65-nm feature sizes on 300-mm diameter wafers. It will add MRAM-specific processing layers to standard CMOS wafers sourced from other foundries. The fab is scheduled to be in operation in 2013 and capable of producing up to 500 wafers per week.

A second phase of investment is expected to expand manufacturing capacity to 1,000 wafer starts per week.